Billionaire investor Bill Ackman clarified on Saturday that his hedge fund’s decision to fully liquidate its long-held stake in Google parent Alphabet was driven by portfolio rebalancing rather than negative sentiment.
The announcement follows a series of updates from Pershing Square Capital Management revealing that the firm used the proceeds from the Alphabet exit to fund a massive new $2.4 billion position in Microsoft Corporation.
Pershing Square began quietly accumulating Microsoft shares in February during a period of market weakness, capitalizing on a double-digit slide in the software giant’s stock price triggered by investor anxiety over its $190 billion artificial intelligence capital expenditure plan and a restructured partnership with OpenAI.
Addressing market assumptions on social media platform X, the hedge fund manager emphasized that the transaction was purely a tactical reallocation of assets.
"To be clear, our sale of Google was not a bet against the company. We are very bullish long term on Alphabet. But at current valuations and in light of our finite capital base, we used it as a source of funds for Microsoft," Ackman wrote.
The structural pivot expands Ackman’s aggressive concentration within the "Magnificent Seven" technology cohort.
Pershing Square’s latest regulatory filings show the fund added over 5.6 million shares of Microsoft while slashing roughly 95% of its Alphabet equity during the first quarter, fully liquidating the remaining Google shares shortly thereafter.
The new Microsoft holding has also been integrated as a foundational anchor for Ackman’s newly launched closed-end fund, Pershing Square USA Ltd (NYSE:PSUS), which raised $5 billion in its initial public offering on April 29.
